Nota de la editora. "Entrevistas a Hélène Cixous"

La obra literaria y filosófica de Hélène Cixous, fundamental en el pensamiento contemporáneo, arrastra el estigma de ser de difícil lectura. Aunque no se esté de acuerdo con este juicio, la originalidad de dicha obra reclama, es cierto, una lectura activa e informada. No escribimos sin cuerpo reúne doce entrevistas realizadas a Hélène Cixous en los últimos treinta años, que dan las claves imprescindibles para iniciarse o profundizar en el universo de esta autora. En ellas, Cixous reflexiona de forma clara, pero sin renunciar al rigor y a la sutileza que la caracterizan, sobre algunas de sus preocupaciones y temas más emblemáticos: el compromiso político que ha mantenido siempre vivo, especialmente la vertiente teatral de su obra; la llamada écriture féminine, que constituye una de sus aportaciones teóricas más célebres y polémicas al pensamiento feminista; la cuestión fundamental del Otro y los otros, tanto desde el punto de vista filosófico y psicoanalítico como literario; y la reflexión postcolonial, pues Cixous creció en la Argelia francesa en una familia de ascendencia judía.

Nota de la editora. "Entrevistas a Hélène Cixous"

La obra literaria y filosófica de Hélène Cixous, fundamental en el pensamiento contemporáneo, arrastra el estigma de ser de difícil lectura. Aunque no se esté de acuerdo con este juicio, la originalidad de dicha obra reclama, es cierto, una lectura activa e informada. No escribimos sin cuerpo reúne doce entrevistas realizadas a Hélène Cixous en los últimos treinta años, que dan las claves imprescindibles para iniciarse o profundizar en el universo de esta autora. En ellas, Cixous reflexiona de forma clara, pero sin renunciar al rigor y a la sutileza que la caracterizan, sobre algunas de sus preocupaciones y temas más emblemáticos: el compromiso político que ha mantenido siempre vivo, especialmente la vertiente teatral de su obra; la llamada écriture féminine, que constituye una de sus aportaciones teóricas más célebres y polémicas al pensamiento feminista; la cuestión fundamental del Otro y los otros, tanto desde el punto de vista filosófico y psicoanalítico como literario; y la reflexión postcolonial, pues Cixous creció en la Argelia francesa en una familia de ascendencia judía.

Les escriptores a Galicia: subversio, gramatica violeta i identitat multiple

La literatura gallega dels darrers anys s"ha vist profundament transformada per la irrupció de les escriptores i una «gramàtica violeta», una literatura concebuda en femení, que ha afectat també l"escriptura d"autoria masculina. Les seves propostes no se situen, doncs, en el marge del camp literari, malgrat que numèricament són menys. A la narrativa han engegat ambiciosos projectes de subversió de gènere amb una bona recepció. A la poesia s"han convertit en models literaris per la seva capacitat d"experimentació i renovació integral de l"escriptura, fent quallar una gramàtica violeta. I l"espai virtual, convertit en laboratori públic del llenguatge, s"experimenta amb l"escriptura i la identitat múltiple.

Les escriptores a Galicia: subversio, gramatica violeta i identitat multiple

La literatura gallega dels darrers anys s"ha vist profundament transformada per la irrupció de les escriptores i una «gramàtica violeta», una literatura concebuda en femení, que ha afectat també l"escriptura d"autoria masculina. Les seves propostes no se situen, doncs, en el marge del camp literari, malgrat que numèricament són menys. A la narrativa han engegat ambiciosos projectes de subversió de gènere amb una bona recepció. A la poesia s"han convertit en models literaris per la seva capacitat d"experimentació i renovació integral de l"escriptura, fent quallar una gramàtica violeta. I l"espai virtual, convertit en laboratori públic del llenguatge, s"experimenta amb l"escriptura i la identitat múltiple.

Reading Ng Kim Chew: Malaysian-Chineseness and memory in contemporary Malaysian Chinese literature in taiwan

The idea of Chineseness as a geographic, cultural-specific and ethnically-charged concept, and the pivotal role assumed by memory linger throughout the writings of most authors hailing from Chinese community in Southeast Asia. Among these communities, being the Malaysian Chinese the more prolific in terms of number of writers and pieces of literature produced, this paper deals specifically with it. Its focus is put on the literature produced by Malaysian Chinese authors residing in Taiwan, which topic constitutes an important part of the first chapter, and on one of its main representatives, Ng Kim Chew, to whom chapter two and three are fully dedicated. A literary analysis of one of his short stories, Huo yu tu, will allow the reader to have a first-hand experience, through excerpts from the original text, of the importance of Chineseness and memory in the literary production of Ng and of many authors sharing with him similar life and literary experiences. I started this research from the assumption that these authors make large use of their own memories and memories from their own community in their writing as a way to re-tie themselves to the Chineseness they left in their places of origin. However in the case of Ng Kim Chew, the analysis of his works led be to theorizing that the identity he is imbued with, if there is one, is not Chinese, nor Malaysian, but purely and distinctively Malaysian-Chinese. This paper can also serve as an introduction for the general public to the field of Sinophone literature from Southeast Asia and to promote wider and innovative paths of research within the realm of Chinese studies that go beyond China proper.

Gender effects on performance in Bulgarian private enterprises

Many of the newly established private enterprises in transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are owned and managed by women (Degtiar, 2000). However, there are limited research and knowledge on gender, management, and organization in CEE (Metcalfe and Afanassieva, 2005) and, particularly, on the performance of female-owned companies. Sporadic empirical evidence shows that female-owned companies have worse performance than male-owned companies in transition economies (Drnovsek and Glas, 2006; Aidis, 2006). The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we study the factors that affect the performance of female-owned companies in a transition context. Second, we compare how performance varies between female and male-owned businesses in such a context. Combining the Feminist Theory, the Institutional Theory, and the literature on determinants of firm performance, we derive hypotheses about the determinants of the performance of female-owned companies and about gender differences in performance. The proposed hypotheses are tested in a sample of 501 private Bulgarian companies. Our results indicate that a number of individual, organizational, and environmental characteristics are significant determinants of the performance of both female and male-owned companies. Although there are gender differences in performance, they disappear when other factors are controlled for. We conclude with some recommendations for policy implications and place the current results in respect to future research.

Bringing actors and violent conflict into forced migration literature. A model of the decision to return

Populations displaced as a result of mass violent conflict have become one of the most pressing humanitarian concerns of the last decades. They have also become one salient political issue as a perceived burden (in economic and security terms) and as an important piece in the shift towards a more interventionist paradigm in the international system, based on both humanitarian and security grounds. The saliency of these aspects has detracted attention from the analysis of the interactions between relocation processes and violent conflict. Violent conflict studies have also largely ignored those interactions as a result of the consideration of these processes as mere reaction movements determined by structural conditions. This article takes the view that individual’s agency is retained during such processes, and that it is consequential, calling for the need to introduce a micro perspective. Based on this, a model for the individual’s decision of return is presented. The model has the potential to account for the dynamics of return at both the individual and the aggregate level. And it further helps to grasp fundamental interconnections with violent conflict. Some relevant conclusions are derived for the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina and about the implications of the politicization of return.

Tecla d'Iconi, més enllà de la llegenda : estudi del paper desenvolupat per la dona en el cristianisme primitiu a través de la protagonista dels Actes de Pau i Tecla

El cristianisme, en els seus inicis, significà per la dona la possibilitat de triar un destí diferent al del matrimoni i la maternitat que li deparava la societat greco-romana. Tanmateix, en el procés d'institucionalització de la nova religió (s. I-IV), la dona, que en les primitives comunitats cristianes havia ocupat llocs de responsabilitats al costat dels seus companys masculins, va quedar relegada al desenvolupament de tasques assistencials. Els canvis experimentats pel rol femení durant aquest període es manifestaran en les transformacions operades a través de la literatura en la figura de Tecla d'Iconi (santa Tecla), un personatge intemporal, tan capaç de representar els diferents arquetips de dona ideal que ha creat l'Església cristiana, com les ànsies emancipadores d'alguns col·lectius feministes.

OSIRISv1.2: a named entity recognition system for sequence variants of genes in biomedical literature

Background: Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms, among other type of sequence variants, constitute key elements in genetic epidemiology and pharmacogenomics. While sequence data about genetic variation is found at databases such as dbSNP, clues about the functional and phenotypic consequences of the variations are generally found in biomedical literature. The identification of the relevant documents and the extraction of the information from them are hampered by the large size of literature databases and the lack of widely accepted standard notation for biomedical entities. Thus, automatic systems for the identification of citations of allelic variants of genes in biomedical texts are required. Results: Our group has previously reported the development of OSIRIS, a system aimed at the retrieval of literature about allelic variants of genes http://ibi.imim.es/osirisform.html. Here we describe the development of a new version of OSIRIS (OSIRISv1.2, http://ibi.imim.es/OSIRISv1.2.html webcite) which incorporates a new entity recognition module and is built on top of a local mirror of the MEDLINE collection and HgenetInfoDB: a database that collects data on human gene sequence variations. The new entity recognition module is based on a pattern-based search algorithm for the identification of variation terms in the texts and their mapping to dbSNP identifiers. The performance of OSIRISv1.2 was evaluated on a manually annotated corpus, resulting in 99% precision, 82% recall, and an F-score of 0.89. As an example, the application of the system for collecting literature citations for the allelic variants of genes related to the diseases intracranial aneurysm and breast cancer is presented. Conclusion: OSIRISv1.2 can be used to link literature references to dbSNP database entries with high accuracy, and therefore is suitable for collecting current knowledge on gene sequence variations and supporting the functional annotation of variation databases. The application of OSIRISv1.2 in combination with controlled vocabularies like MeSH provides a way to identify associations of biomedical interest, such as those that relate SNPs with diseases.

Teaching Literature in EFL through the Story Grammar and Reader Response Approach

La Literatura ha de ser implementada a les aules com a eina per a l’ensenyament i aprenentatge de la llengua anglesa, i hauria de complementar els llibres de text d’ensenyament d’aquesta llengua. D’aquesta manera els alumnes seran exposats encara més a una varietat de registres, expressions i vocabulari d’aquesta llengua. La metodologia d’ensenyar la gramàtica dels contes o històries coneguda en anglès com “Story Grammar Approach” (SGA) i la metodologia sobre la comprensió i reacció lectora o “Reader Response Approach” (RRA) són excel•lent vehicles per a implementar la Literatura com a eina a les aules per a ensenyar anglès.La metodologia sobre la gramàtica de contes o “SGA” només es pot posar en pràctica quan els textos són narratius perquè aquests posseeixen tots els següents elements:• Personatges• Ambient• Trama• Conflicte• Resolució• Tema La metodologia de la reacció lectiva o “RRA” es centra principalment en la comprensió subjectiva i reacció del lector sobre un text, en la qual el lector formula una hipòtesis i aporta les seves idees sobre el text a una conversa grupal. Els estudiants han de poder aportar les seves reaccions, idees i respostes sobre els textos. La metodologia “RRA” també enfoca les habilitats cognitives superiors i empenya a l’alumne a millorar la seva expressió oral.Aquestes dues metodologies aporten incomptable avantatges. Treballen totes les intel•ligències múltiples i totes les competències acadèmiques (menys la matemàtica), els alumnes aprenen a treballar i a escolar als altres (i valorar altres opinions), poden aprendre sobre diferents cultures, la història, geografia, són exposats a diferents gèneres, i fomenten i estimulen la lectura i escriptura, com també treballen les habilitats productives i receptives en l’aprenentatge del anglès.

Review of the literature on reference pricing

This paper reviews the literature on reference pricing (RP) in pharmaceutical markets. The RP strategy for cost containment of expenditure on drugs is analyzed as part of the procurement mechanism. We review the existing literature and the state-of-the-art regarding RP by focusing on its economic effects. In particular, we consider: (1) the institutional context and problem-related factors which appear to underline the need to implement an RP strategy; i.e., its nature, characteristics and the sort of health care problems commonly addressed; (2) how RP operates in practice; that is, how third party-payers (the insurers/buyers) have established the RP systems existing on the international scene (i.e., information methods, monitoring procedures and legislative provisions); (3)the range of effects resulting from particular RP strategies (including effects on choice of appropriate pharmaceuticals, insurer savings, total drug expenditures, prices of referenced and non-referenced products and dynamic efficiency; (4) the market failures which an RP policy is supposed to address and the main advantages and drawbacks which emerge from an analysis of its effects. Results suggest that RP systems achieve better their postulated goals (1) if cost inflation in pharmaceuticals is due to high prices rather than to the excess of prescription rates, (2) when the larger is the existing difference in prices among equivalent drugs, and (3) more important is the actual market for generics.